


What Doesn't Kill Us

by rsconne



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, BUT SHE LIVES, Clexa Week 2021, Clexa Week Day 6 Magic, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff, Immortal!Lexa, Major Character Injury, Major character death - Freeform, Marine!Clarke, Modern AU, Old Guard AU, TW Lexa dies, TW Lexa is shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:22:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29885913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsconne/pseuds/rsconne
Summary: Ancient warrior Lexa kom Trikru and her band of Immortals have spent centuries righting wrongs and slaying enemies.  Now, a shadowy adversary threatens...just as a new Immortal joins Lexa's ranks and tests her emotions.Or, The Old Guard AU that no one asked for.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 16
Kudos: 102





	What Doesn't Kill Us

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: LEXA DIES. She does get shot. BUT, she is (apparently) immortal and does not stay dead. I get it if that's not your cup of tea, but please don't @ me, because you've been warned in the tags and notes. Trust me and have faith that there will (eventually) be a happy ending.
> 
> Also, yes, I know Indra uses a firearm here. Again, just go with it.

It didn’t always hurt to die. As dying went, getting shot was a relatively easy way to go, Lexa thought, as the first bullets thumped into her chest. The rattle of gunfire, the rapid jangle of shell casings hitting the floor, the thwack of slugs tearing into flesh, and the stink of cordite all blinked out in an instant and the familiar darkness took her before she even hit the ground. For a few merciful, glorious, fleeting seconds there was nothing but a stillness deeper than silence. 

_Maybe this time_.

But even as the thought came she knew it was too late, that simply having the thought at all meant that the process had already begun again. Sure enough, milliseconds later, air rushed back into her lungs and her heart resumed its steady contractions. Lexa instinctively braced herself because by now her body knew that _this_ was the part that hurt. Dying wasn’t always so bad. Sure, burning sucked, and if your strangler didn’t know his business it made dying a chore. Blades could be… _messy_. But once you got past the initial burst of panic, drowning could be downright peaceful. No, dying wasn’t the problem. It was _resurrection_ that was a bitch and a half. 

All her sensation surged at once. Physical agony as her body mended the damage done: bones knitting themselves together, tendons and sinew stitching back into place, skin regrafting and healing itself. The indescribable discomfort of her determined flesh expelling shrapnel and shell fragments. The spike of adrenaline as her body threw off death. She’d screamed the first dozen times. The mental agony was almost as bad. The fight, flight, or freeze response that took over in the final moment before death always surged back with a vengeance in the first flush of reawakening. And even though Lexa had long since stopped feeling fear in life, it still caught up to her in those fleeting moments of death.

It got old after a few hundred years. 

As did these pathetic attempts to trap her. Lexa suppressed her rage at the ambush. She lay quiet and still, crumpled in a pool of her blood, its coppery tang assaulting her senses. She concentrated on keeping her breaths slow and letting her pulse even out. Her clouded vision cleared quickly to reveal her would-be assassins standing down, lowering their weapons, clapping each other on the back at their apparent success. The angle was awkward, but she could make out Lincoln’s form sprawled on the ground across the dim-lit room. She thought she saw his finger twitch on the trigger guard of his M4, but otherwise he lay motionless, too. 

Lexa played dead a few minutes more to stoke her assailants’ false sense of victory. Finally, judging the moment right, she rose to her feet in one fluid motion. The rest of her team stood with her, as if by pre-arranged signal. Lexa ignored her rifle. Instead, she unsheathed the two swords strapped across her back. Savoring their comforting weight, she set upon the foe with a snarl and unleashed her wrath. 

She caught the first man unaware with a slash across the body, then ripped the blade free to backhand a second before he could bring his gun up. Hack, swirl, punch with the pommel of one sword, slice the killing blow with the other. Lexa’s mind cleared and muscle memory took over as she systematically took her enemies down. After so many battles together, she could sense her team carrying out their lethal mission without actually seeing them move. Lincoln: so efficient in his movements as he lay waste with his rifle, quick bursts of fire interspersed by a throat punch with the rifle butt, knee to the groin, shot to the chest, reload. Anya: a murderous blur with her axe, a wolfish grin twisting her lips. Indra: precise with her shots and blows like Lincoln, but with more grim satisfaction in putting her adversaries down.

It was over in minutes, almost before their ambushers knew what hit them. Almost. Lexa had seen that sudden, terrified realization on enemy faces thousands of times: disbelief turning to horror and then to panic as their brains processed the impossible and frantically sought an escape. They’d undoubtedly been warned that their quarry was dangerous— _unusual_ , even—and yet still they didn’t believe until it was too late. 

Lexa’s last foe collapsed to the filthy concrete floor. Perceiving no other threats, Lexa wiped her blades clean on the dead man’s black fatigues and resheathed them, then turned to take stock. Her adrenaline was still pumping, but she felt the red fury that consumed her in these moments start to ebb. It never left her entirely, but she’d learned long ago how to bank the emotion until the time came to exact vengeance. The rest of her team was not so stoic. 

“What the fuck was that?” Anya spat, still keyed up, eyes sweeping the blood-spattered room for any sign of resistance.

Lexa silenced her with a hand. “Later,” she said tersely, her flat tone brooking no argument. “Search them,” she directed. With the others, she stooped and rifled swiftly through the dead’s utility pockets, ignoring the staring, vacant eyes and darkly gashed flesh. She came up empty: no dog tags, no ID, no photos of kids or girlfriends or pets secreted in helmets, no lucky talismans in pockets.

“Serial numbers have been removed,” Lincoln observed, switching off his flashlight and tossing aside an enemy weapon. 

“Commander,” Indra said sharply, looking upward. Lexa followed her line of sight and saw a tiny red dot glowing in the upper corner of the room. 

_Fuck_.

Lexa quickly turned her back on the camera and jerked her chin at Anya. Anya gave a snarl as she swung her war axe and smashed the tech to the ground. The red light winked out.

*********

Lexa’s team bugged out of the compound quickly. Each of them was back on high alert for possible followers as they hiked the few klicks back to the insert point. There was little conversation as they drove off in the SUV. Indra put the pedal down and the others scanned the remote scenery for the telltale dust clouds of pursuit vehicles. It was after dark when they reached their pre-determined exfiltration site at an abandoned quarry. 

Lexa broke the silence. “Strip it and torch it. Weapons, too. Get rid of anything that could tie us to the job,” she instructed. She got out and pitched her rifle in the back of the vehicle, then began peeling off her bullet-riddled fatigues that were stained dark with her blood. 

“ _What_ job, Lexa?” Anya said, still angry. She tossed her own gear in the truck. “Where were the hostages?” 

When Lexa didn’t reply right away, Indra spoke. “There never were any. This was a trap. For us.”

“How, though?” Lincoln said, frowning. He hefted a jerry can onto his shoulder and began dousing the vehicle and their discarded equipment with gasoline. “How could anyone get this close? Gustus vetted the approach, said all the contact codes were legit.”

“Well Gustus was fucking wrong, then! Or those codes have been compromised,” Anya said. The three of them changed out of their assault gear and continued with their worried speculation while Lincoln lit the fuel and they waited for the flames to catch in earnest. 

They fell silent when Lexa finally spoke. The glow from the burning SUV lit her face and her green eyes were dark and troubled. “ _How_ isn’t as important right now as _who_. We weren’t the only ones who were set up. Those mercs weren’t sent to capture us. Someone deliberately sent their own men to their deaths to flush us out. Someone was watching that camera. Whoever’s behind this is ruthless, and we need to find them. Quickly.” _Before they find us_.

“We’ll need to split up,” she continued. “We don’t know how they found us, so we don’t know whether they’re still tracking us somehow. Lincoln, once you get clear, make contact with Gustus and see if you can get a line on how they intercepted the contact protocol. Anya, Indra, we’ll need new weapons and transport suppliers, document forgers, the works. We have to consider our current network burned until further notice.” 

The others each gave grim nods of assent. 

“And watch for tails, surveillance, anything that seems _off_. We’ll rendezvous at in 72 hours. If you think you’re compromised, use the codes from Sevastopol, 1854 and wait for instructions. Let’s move out.”

*****

Lexa’s squad hopped a freight train outside the quarry for the next leg of their getaway. It was slow, but cheap, low-tech, and anonymous, a good way to disappear off the grid. They holed up in an empty boxcar, unseen, as the train carried them across miles of remote terrain. They would disembark one at a time when the train rolled through larger settlements and make their separate ways to the rendezvous. In the meantime, they all seized the opportunity to rest; the day had been grueling already, and there was no telling when the next chance for sleep might come.

Lexa arranged her small pack under her head for a pillow and draped her leather jacket over her arms and chest like a blanket. The train’s soothing rumble and the rhythmic clack of the wheels on the rails quickly lulled her to sleep.

*********

_Hot. So hot. Dust._

_Thump and whoosh. World gone sideways. Screams. Fire._

_Chaos. Lungs burning pain leg throbbing._

_Blood. Breathe breathe breathe steady hands. Pressure._

_One and two and three and four and five and_

_Crack._

Lexa jolted upright. She clutched at her neck, gasping, scrabbling for a wound and finding nothing. Her thundering heartbeat slowly eased, but her sense of urgency did not. She fumbled for her water bottle and took a swig to center herself and wash away the taste of blood and dirt and fear. Around her, the rest of her crew also began to stir.

Lincoln’s voice was groggy. “Did you—”

“Yes.” Indra sounded as impervious as ever, but Lexa could see her tensed jaw even in the dim light inside the boxcar.

“What do we know?” Lexa said, already tying up her loosened boot laces. 

“Small,” Lincoln said. “A woman.”

“An explosion,” Anya said. She shook her head as if her ears were still ringing.

“I saw a uniform.” Indra closed her eyes to fix the image more carefully. “Tan. Desert camo?” 

“So…a soldier,” Lexa said slowly, although it didn’t quite match what her gut told her. 

“A training accident? War zone? What?” Lincoln asked.

“No.” Lexa was definite. “It was real. She was terrified.”

“Wait, you _felt_ her?” Anya said, eyes narrowing in a frown. “Lexa, have you ever _felt_ them die before?”

“No. I don’t know,” Lexa said, too tired to deal with Anya’s concern. _Not like this. Never like this._ She suddenly felt the weight of all those centuries. “Probably active war zone. Iraq? Afghanistan? What else did you see?”

“I saw mountains,” Lincoln offered.

“Afghanistan, then,” said Indra.

“I heard someone call out ‘Clarke,’” Anya shook her head. “But that’s all. Name, place, could be anything.”

_Clarke_. Lexa tried it out in her head. “It’s her name,” she said, certain. 

“How can you be sure?”

Lexa busied herself prepping her gear, unwilling to describe the unsettling terror she’d felt at seeing the light fade from vivid blue eyes—her own terror, not that of the woman in the vision. “I just am.”

“Lexa, what aren’t you telling us?” Anya tried again. “Why _now_? It’s been what, three hundred years?” 

“Three hundred and nine,” Lincoln interjected, giving Anya an arch look. “But who’s counting?”

“I don’t know _why now_. Why you? Why me? Why _any_ of it?” Lexa said, some frustration finally creeping in. “I don’t have any answers, Ahn, I never have. We don’t have time to argue about it now, I have to go.”

“How long does she have?” Indra asked.

Lexa considered. “A few days, maybe? I need to find her first.” She slung on her leather jacket.

“It doesn’t always have to be you, you know,” Anya said.

“Yes, it does,” Lexa said simply. “I came for you,” she said, nodding at Anya. “And you. All of you. I won’t leave this one.” She hauled the door of the boxcar open and shouted over the wind noise, “Stick to the plan! Meet at the rendezvous in three days! I’ll join you as soon as I can!” 

And then, tossing her pack out first, she jumped off the train.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up on tumblr at [barbieliberationarmy](https://barbieliberationarmy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
